Sir Henry Clinton
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Marches began long before sunrise. By noon, the soldiers tumbled out of line to search for shade. Clinton, dragging what he called an “indispensably enormous provision train [that] necessarily clogged me,” took whole days off to rest his men. Washington avoided overtaking the enemy, waiting for a moment that offered him an edge. A militia leader suspected that Clinton’s slow pace was designed to invite an attack, that the armies were not playing cat-and-mouse but cat-and-cat.8
More than a thousand New Jersey militiamen harried the British, smashing bridges and felling trees across roads. They ambushed small groups and took potshots from behind cover. Each step, a Hessian officer recalled, “cost human blood.” Clinton’s great enemy, though, was the heat. Dozens collapsed and more deserted. The air, one Continental remembered, was “almost impossible to breathe.” Greene compared the conditions to the Arabian desert. British and German soldiers, suffering more than the Americans, vented their frustration by looting and burning the farms and villages they passed.9
After a week, Washington convened another council. The enemy was nearing the Atlantic coast, where the Royal Navy would greet it. Time was growing short for a battle.
Most of the generals still favored defense. They recommended that a vanguard of 1,500 hover near the British and “act as occasion may serve.” Charles Lee was even less warlike, proclaiming that the Americans should build a “bridge of gold” to hurry the British back to New York. Lee’s advice disgusted Alexander Hamilton, who thought it worthy of a “society of midwives, and to them only.”10
Washington’s favorites—Lafayette and Greene, joined by Anthony Wayne—still wanted to fight. Greene again stressed political concerns: “People expect something from us and our strength demands it.” Lafayette pressed to increase the advance guard to 2,500 men, adding that a general action “might be advantageous” under certain conditions. Wayne urged a vanguard of 3,000, and also favored a general action in proper circumstances.11
This sequence illustrates how Washington used his generals to frame and refine his own thoughts. If time allowed, he sifted all views, giving extra weight to those whose judgment he valued most highly. But Washington made the final decision; only he would answer for it. In the last week of June, he expanded the army’s vanguard to 5,000 and sent it ahead to find a favorable opportunity for battle.12
Greene was right that the country expected the Continentals to fight, and to fight soon. Once the British reached New York, their navy could help them attack anywhere on the Atlantic coast, leaving Washington to scramble overland to oppose them. By increasing the vanguard to nearly half of his fighting power, Washington invited the enemy to wheel and face it, which Clinton wanted to do.
* * *
On June 27, Clinton ordered another rest day. One day’s march separated his army from nearly impregnable high ground; one more day would bring it to the ships that would ferry it to New York. The Americans, who also rested, had not yet challenged him. If there was to be an attack, it would come in the next twenty-four hours.13
For the two days before, command of the American vanguard had bounced crazily, thanks to Charles Lee. When Washington offered Lee the vanguard command, Lee spurned it as too small for an officer of his distinction. Washington’s second choice, Lafayette, leapt at the opportunity, then exhausted his men by marching too far ahead of the main army. Washington ordered Lafayette and the vanguard to rejoin the army at Englishtown. Then Lee changed his mind. Since the vanguard had grown to nearly 6,000, he decided it was “the most honorable command next to Commander in Chief.” Refusing to command it, he admitted, had “an odd appearance”; unless he led the vanguard, he would be disgraced.14
Lafayette, chastened by his missteps, yielded graciously, saving Washington the choice between an overaggressive youngster and a seasoned officer with little interest in fighting. Washington did not know, of course, that Lee had previously advised the British on how they could win the war.15
During the rest day, Washington met with the vanguard’s generals. He ordered Lee to attack unless there were “powerful reasons” not to. The other officers understood that they were to attack. Lee, however, later claimed that he had complete discretion to attack or not. In truth, he had some discretion. In 1778, aides on horseback carried battlefield communications. A messenger might spend an hour or more finding the message recipient, and a like time carrying a reply. Consequently, subordinate officers had to respond to developments that the commander could not know about. The extent of Lee’s discretion, and how he exercised it, would become controversial. That afternoon before the battle, Lee chose not to reconnoiter the ground over which he would lead his men in the morning, even though it included uneven morasses and several creeks.16
At sunrise on June 28, the vanguard advanced tentatively. Lee soon lost control of it. For nearly seven hours, American detachments moved back and forth across largely open fields, sometimes maneuvering under Lee’s orders, sometimes at the direction of subordinates. Sporadic firing broke out at times, notably at Monmouth Court House (since renamed Freehold), but nothing like a battle developed.17
By late morning, some commanders in the vanguard, flummoxed by incomplete or nonexistent orders from Lee, started to withdraw. The British rear guard included Clinton’s finest troops: grenadiers, light infantry, and Hessian jaegers. Confronting a strong foe, unsure where some of his units were, Lee ordered a general withdrawal. Sweaty, thirsty, and worn, the Continentals neither fled nor retired in good order, but achieved something in-between.18
Through the morning, Washington had advanced the balance of the army at a languid pace. He stopped for breakfast, taking time to write a letter to President Laurens that might have been composed on another day. Perhaps he was trying to save his troops’ strength as temperatures soared. No news arrived from Lee. When Washington’s messenger found Lee near Monmouth Court House and asked about the attack, Lee confessed that he “really did not know what to say.”19
Washington confronts General Charles Lee at Monmouth Court House.
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Shortly after noon, the heat blistering, Washington was five miles from Monmouth Court House when he met Continentals retiring toward him. There had been no attack, he learned, and the British were close behind. The prospect loomed that the day would end quietly, charged off as another instance of hesitation by indecisive General Washington. Talk would revive of the wonders that Gates had worked at Saratoga. Washington spurred his horse forward.20
Lee met the commander in front of Perrine’s Hill. Calling out before Lee could speak, Washington demanded, “What is the meaning of all this?” The Englishman, intimidated, did not answer. Washington—“in a great passion,” according to an observer—repeated himself. Lee stammered out complaints about bad intelligence and officers who withdrew without orders, which left him no course but to order a general pullback. Lee unwisely reminded Washington that he had previously opposed an attack. The commander replied angrily that no matter what Lee’s opinions were, Washington expected him to follow orders. The confrontation drew onlookers. Some remembered Washington at the edge of fury, but he had no time for temper.21
With his plans melting in the blazing sun, Washington had to halt the retreat. His army had to stand and fight. He gathered himself for his best afternoon as a battlefield commander, an inspired improvisation superior to most of his planned battles.
The British were a half mile away. He had fifteen minutes. He scanned the soggy morass behind him, the hill on one side. In front were rolling country, creeks, and more morass. He sent some retreating troops to the rear. They were spent, debilitated by eight hours of tramping through sizzling weather. He directed one of his fighting generals, Anthony Wayne, to take two battalions into woods on the left and attack from the flank when the British swept by.
To reach the hilltop, the British would have to cross a bridge and a morass, then charge uphill into the mouths of muskets and cannon. Washington placed Lord Stirling’s men on his left with a ten-gun artillery battery, and Greene’s troops on the right with more cannon. Washington stayed at the center, tall and determined. There was no confusion.
The British, who were accustomed to taking any field the Continentals held, attacked eagerly. Lee’s men held the hedgerow for four volleys that inflicted damage, then withdrew. Wayne’s force struck from the flank, punishing the grenadiers, who turned on them. In grim hand-to-hand fighting, they pushed the Americans back. The British climbed again, the scalding sun making their legs heavy. From the hilltop, massed volleys and roaring cannon stopped them cold. The British, unbelieving, wavered. Then back downhill they went, their dead and dying sprawled behind them.
Map by Hal Jespersen
Clinton halted his men and advanced his artillery, deciding against another uphill attack. He had only half his army with him. The other half had marched off so early that morning that they were far from this fight. For the next two hours, Clinton and Washington waged an artillery duel at a distance of three-quarters of a mile. Washington would not come down. Clinton would not go up. The cannon boomed, over and over. With infantrymen flat on the ground, grateful to be prone, solid shot did little damage.23
A New Jersey officer pointed out to Washington some high ground on the right. Washington sent Greene there with four cannons to rake the British flank. By four thirty, Clinton had had enough. He withdrew. Washington sent regiments after the enemy. Wayne led a detachment against the grenadiers, who wheeled with all their pride and skill. Then Greene’s hillside battery pivoted to support Wayne’s men. The grenadiers yielded.24
As the sun set, the Americans held the field, a novel experience that gave them a quiet satisfaction. Fatigue suppressed elation, as did the expectation of renewed fighting in the morning. The improved supply services brought food and water and ammunition. Washington slept that night on Perrine’s Hill, wrapping his cloak around himself and Lafayette, clinging to that high ground. He would be ready when the British returned.
Beginning at midnight, though, the British slipped away. When the Continentals awakened, they were alone. After yielding so many battlefields, had they finally won?
* * *
Washington ordered no pursuit. His men could not do it. War is a hot business in good weather, as soldiers’ pulses race and their body temperatures soar. In oppressive heat like that at Monmouth Court House, the strain could be overpowering. An American officer called the heat “so excessive that I could not tell by which the most died, whether by the heat or the balls.”
Every man there recalled the heat. A German officer called it cruel; John Laurens settled for excessive. An American private insisted, “Everyone has heard of the heat of that day, but none can realize it that did not feel it.” He called it “almost too hot to live in.”25
The Americans carried a second powerful memory from the day: of George Washington rallying sullen, worn-out men. At Saratoga, Gates had stayed in his quarters while his generals led the fight. Not so George Washington. “The Commander in Chief was everywhere,” Nathanael Greene wrote. “His presence gave spirit and confidence and his command and authority soon brought everything into order and regularity.” Another aide was effusive:
I do not think . . . the general ever in one day displayed more military powers . . . He gave a new turn to the action. He retrieved what had been lost. He was always in danger—examining the enemy’s maneuvers—exhorting the troops—and directing the operation of his plans.26
The reckoning of dead and wounded was strongly in the Americans’ favor. Washington reported fewer than 100 killed and 161 wounded, with 140 missing. (Many of the missing had collapsed from the heat and later recovered.) The British suffered double or triple those losses; sixty Britons died of heat prostration. A British general called Monmouth “a handsome flogging. We had not received such an one in America,” while a Hessian commander recorded, “Today the Americans showed much boldness and resolution on all sides.”27
On the day after, Washington thanked the soldiers and “the supreme disposer of human events.” The Continentals took pride in having beaten Britain’s best. A Washington aide described the foe as “the very flower of the British army.” On the Fourth of July, the Continentals celebrated by bathing in the Raritan River, drinking double rations of rum, and turning out under arms for a thirteen-gun artillery salute and another demonstration of running fire.28
Washington quickly announced an American victory, writing to President Laurens on the morning after the battle. Two days later, he wrote a fuller account. Laurens printed it up as a handbill, which appeared verbatim in the Virginia Gazette. Washington’s tone was factual and objective, his message simple: The Continentals won. Famished for victory, Congress rejoiced. It unanimously approved a resolution thanking Washington personally. Six weeks after the battle, newspapers still ran articles about it.29
Charles Lee, however, would not bask in victory’s glow. For two days afterward, Washington made no comment on Lee’s failure to mount a morning attack. After all, Lee had stood with the troops at the hedgerow. But Lee chose to accuse Washington of inflicting “a cruel injustice” on him. Washington’s remarks on the battlefield, Lee wrote, “implied that I was guilty of either want of conduct, or want of courage.” Lee requested that Washington charge him in a court-martial so Lee could vindicate himself.30
Washington obliged, accusing Lee of disobeying orders to attack, then making “an unnecessary, disorderly, and shameful retreat.” Lee fired back on the same day, expressing the hope that Washington’s “tinsel dignity” would not obscure “the bright rays of truth.”31
Lord Stirling swiftly convened the court-martial. In twenty-four days of testimony, the officers closed ranks around Washington. The court convicted Lee and suspended him from the army for a year, though it removed the term “shameful” from the charges against him, and called the retreat disorderly “in a few instances.” Washington confirmed the verdict and submitted it to Congress, which upheld it.32
Lee’s erratic conduct at Monmouth will ever be puzzling. He scorned Washington’s leadership, counseled against fighting, declined command of the vanguard and then demanded it. On the morning of battle, he neither planned nor executed an attack despite orders to do so. Then he served ably in the afternoon. When the battle was over, he begged to be court-martialed at a time when no Continental Army officer would rule against Washington’s wishes. Determining the motives of long-dead figures is an iffy business. Hindsight allows the speculation that Lee, realizing he had lost Washington’s confidence and was compromised by his conduct while a British prisoner, chose career suicide by court-martial. Washington would not miss Charles Lee, who never returned to the army.33
* * *
The Battle of Monmouth Court House did not cripple Clinton’s army. After arriving in New York, the British general claimed credit for “this long and difficult retreat in the face of a greatly superior army.” Some argue that the battle was a draw. But it marked the Continentals’ emergence as a self-assured fighting force, capable of maneuvering on a battlefield and exploiting opportunities. Richard Henry Lee crowed over how the battle had been won, “the best troops of Britain beaten in an open field.”34
Monmouth solidified Washington’s position as commander in chief. He was again the hero, placing his men in position to win, willing them through the fight. Not since Trenton and Princeton had his
generalship shown so well. His rivals were rivals no more. Gates was moldering in a quiet command; Mifflin was under investigation; Conway had been shot in the face in a duel and was headed to Europe; Charles Lee was out of the army.35 Washington’s position was unchallenged.
From his experience in the French and Indian War, Washington knew that individual victories did not win a war. In that earlier conflict, Britain lost repeatedly, then prevailed. Washington had lost battles in this war, but still was hopeful. Months before, Greene had explained to his brother why he expected victory. “We cannot conquer the British force at once,” Greene admitted, but “they cannot conquer us at all.” British power, he insisted, extended no farther than wherever their soldiers stood.36
The American cause was having a good summer. The French were entering the war, Philadelphia was recovered, and twelve states had ratified the Articles of Confederation (all but Maryland).37 More hard times lay ahead. The fighting would shift to the south, and would be vicious. The stalemate around New York would bring winters of deprivation that were colder than Valley Forge. Victory would require crucial interventions by the French Army and Navy.
But in the first half of 1778, Americans completed essential steps toward becoming a nation that could fight its own battles and attract powerful allies. It was a nation that marched behind George Washington, who reinforced his claim on the trust of his soldiers, of Congress, and of ordinary Americans. He would never let it go.
George Washington Page 33